This small village near to the French-Belgian border was where Hitler oversaw the invasion of France in 1940.
The entire village was taken over by German forces and given the codename Wolfsschlucht I (Wolf’s Gorge) and was the first of three ‘Wolfsschlucht’ Fuhrer HQ sites which would be built for the German leader during the war.
The other two were both in France - Wolfsschlucht II was a massive complex of bunkers and defensive structures constructed near Margival and with Wolfsschlucht III a smaller site with just two bunkers at Saint-Rimay, near to Vendome.
Of the three, WI was the one he spent the longest time at with reports of Hitler occupying a chalet in the woods between June 6 and 26, 1940.

Hitler only spent one day at WII – a complex of over 800 buildings and bunkers – for a meeting with Field Marshalls Erwin Rommel and Gerd Von Rundstedt to plan Germany’s response to the Allied landings in Normandy earlier in the month. He arrived early on June 17, 1944, but while he was there the site was subjected to an air raid, and he left shortly afterwards.

The two bunkers built for Hitler and his aides at WIII were never used by them, although he did visit the area on his train which spent time within the fortified railway tunnel beneath the buildings.
Wolfsschlucht translates to English as ‘Wolf Canyon or Gorge’ and links to Hitler’s codename of ‘Grey Wolf’.

At Bruly, as well as taking over the houses, school, farm, and church, Organisation Todt constructed two large wooden chalets/barracks and a single room, air-raid bunker in the woods.

Today the secluded village at Bruly-le-Pesche – on the edge of the vast Foret de Gondreux - remains much the same as it did in 1940, with the exception of the church whose steeple was removed during the occupation and restored post war.

The church itself became the HQ of the Organisation Todt, Hitler’s engineering and building organisation whose estimated two million labourers constructed thousands of projects for the Third Reich.
The nearby school saw the establishment of the FHQ command centre where the advance through France could be plotted on large maps. Across the road was a communications and Press HQ which is now the site’s shop and starting point for tours. A superb audio tour is available in multiple languages.

From the church you can take a well-signposted trail through the woods where you can see the original concrete bunker plus two modern wooden chalets built in the 1990s which replaced the original buildings which were dismantled after Hitler left the site.

The Fuhrer bunker itself isn’t much to look at – a 7m by 7m building with thick concrete walls and two armoured doors leading to an inner armoured door and a tiny, single room inside. The outer walls have been camouflaged by using a mixture concrete and either wool or asbestos fibres.
This style can be seen on buildings at several bunker sites in France, especially around the Cherbourg and Auderville-Laye areas of Normandy. It was created to reduce shine, break up the shape of the block-like structure, and encourage vegetation to grow on the walls for a more natural camouflage.

The bunker has a small, armoured opening which would allow a small amount of light in and fresh air to circulate and could also be used to fire a weapon from inside, although it was never used for this purpose.

Outside the bunker there’s are extensive woodland through which Hitler would take walks, either alone in the evenings or to talk with visiting staff. A few yards from the chalets and bunker is a cutting known as ‘The Rotunda’ where Hitler would stand on a small plinth and address his commanders who would be grouped around him, inside a low, semi-circular walled area.

Further along the trail you can see a small spring, bath area, and a modern reproduction of an underground hideout used by the resistance of the area.

South east of the village – now agricultural fields – there was believed to be a small landing strip where aircraft such as a Fieseler Storch would have operated from, ferrying VIPs to and from the location.

A few kilometres from the Wolfsschlucht site you can visit a memorial to the resistance fighters who operated in the area.

You can find out more information about the Wolfsschlucht I site at https://bdp1940.be

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